Online tool has hundreds of ideas for making walking and biking easier in Modesto
The walking and bicycling public can use a new online tool to explore possible upgrades to Modesto streets and parks.
The city is seeking comments for a long-range plan for bike lanes, crosswalk improvements and other means of reducing the dominance of motor vehicles. The plan also could ease the way for wheelchairs, skateboards and scooters.
The online tool shows a few hundred projects suggested in an earlier stage of the planning, which started with live gatherings in 2019. The pandemic forced the current stage to be done virtually.
Users can click on each of the projects and submit comments by Sept. 26. They will go into a draft Non-Motorized Transportation Plan that could go before the Modesto City Council for approval by year’s end.
The city would still need to find funding for the various projects. Some are relatively small, such as adding extra pavement during routine street work to accommodate bikes. Some could run into millions of dollars, such as the car-free bridge someone suggested over Highway 99 just north of Briggsmore Avenue.
Some of the money could come from Measure L, a sales tax increase approved by Stanislaus County voters in 2016 for transportation. The measure requires that 5% of the income go to bike and pedestrian projects.
This has amounted to about $687,000 a year for Modesto, Deputy City Manager Caluha Barnes said by email Friday.
“In addition, the city supplements these funds with competitive state and federal grants, of which hundreds of thousands of dollars are available each year,” she said. “Based on past success, we’re optimistic about additional state and federal funding to support non-motorized improvements.”
Modesto already has some notable places to walk and bike with little interference from motor vehicles. The Virginia Corridor stretches from Needham Street into north Modesto and will eventually bridge Standiford Avenue. Trails run through the parks along the Tuolumne River and Dry Creek. Another is along the Hetch Hetchy power line right of way in north Modesto.
But the main trails don’t connect to each other, and many streets around Modesto are built more for motor vehicles. Some have designated bike lanes, but with just a stripe on the pavement rather than a berm or other barrier.
Children are already benefiting from safer crosswalks and other upgrades around some schools, a growing part of state and federal funding.
The online tool suggests numerous other places where better lighting and pavement markings could help pedestrians. Sidewalks could get “bulb-outs” at corners to prompt drivers to slow down.
Some of the ideas are from the downtown master plan approved by the council last year. It deals mainly with adding high-density housing to the core. But it also suggests better connections on foot and bike to the river park and other established trails.
Modesto’s planning follows on the completion in February of a county-wide plan by the Stanislaus Council of Governments.
